


everything i see is just a different shade of you

by bothsexuals



Series: planted in my mind [3]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Feelings Realization, M/M, it is -quite frankly- about the yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24926146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bothsexuals/pseuds/bothsexuals
Summary: Troy realizes something while walking around the streets of Amsterdam.
Relationships: Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Series: planted in my mind [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1802440
Comments: 8
Kudos: 117





	everything i see is just a different shade of you

**Author's Note:**

> Yes yes yes baby it's Troy realizing he loves Abed while he's away, let's DO THIS! We all knew this was coming, didn't we? I'm pumped, honestly. I hope you like it. 
> 
> This is dedicated to my best friend. Yes, babe, I know you can tell I based everything on us and things we did together. I miss you. I want to walk around Amsterdam and laugh at how many fucking weed and sex shops there are and get chips and great food from food trucks we didn't expect to find with you. I love you and I like you. Now enjoy this fic about a show you don't watch. 
> 
> Everyone else, you also enjoy. Title is from "You're In My Head" by Rusty Clanton again- it's got a lot of great lyrics, okay?

It didn’t always make sense, the things that reminded Troy of Abed. 

Sometimes the connection was obvious, like when he visited locations where _Inspector Spacetime_ was filmed, or found an authentic Bobby Cobb’s Penny Can can in Taiwan of all places. Some other times, he saw two men holding hands walking along the parisian streets, and something tugged at his heartstrings, and then all he could see in his mind’s eye was _Abed_.

There wasn’t a lot in Amsterdam that should remind him of Abed. The pretty flowers should remind him of Annie (and they did, but thinking of Annie always derailed into thinking of Annie and Abed, a.k.a. the best roommates he had ever had- and that was _including_ sharing a boat with LeVar Burton), the weed stores should remind him of Britta, the pretty bakeries should remind him of Shirley. 

Instead, he looks at the clear sky, looks at the vibrant green of the trees, the gentle flow of the water, and the way it all blends so perfectly together, and wishes Abed was there to see its beauty.

Was the trip even working? Everyone said he was too dependent on Abed, their relationship was weird and too intimate and all that, but he had left. He had left, he was on his own, and he kept thinking of Abed anyways. Maybe he should just go back. Maybe he should just go back, fall into Abed’s arms as easily as he always had and continue to not be rich. He’d rather have Abed than money anyways. 

But the trip _was_ working, it really was. He had seen so many things, met so many people, and realized a whole lot. He couldn’t give up on it, on finding himself, just because he wanted to go back to Abed. He knew he would, once he was ready. Of course he’d go back to him, that was never in doubt.

He was startled out of his thoughts when someone bumped into him. He looked up to see a mortified blonde girl staring back at him. 

“Oh, shit, sorry,” she mumbled, “I was looking at my phone like an idiot.” 

“It’s okay,” he smiled, “I was looking at the sky like an idiot.”

“It’s okay,” she replied, “tourists are allowed to be spacey. You’re a tourist, right?” 

“Sure am,” he nodded, “you live here?” 

“I sure do,” she said, “well, I study here, but for the sake of brevity we won’t talk about the tiny town I legally reside in.” 

“Alright,” Troy laughed, “well, hey, I’m kind of out of places to go-”

“Oh, I understand,” she chimed in with a smile, “see, what you need to do is go right there-” she pointed at a street “-right beside the third sex shop, you will find the best fucking chips in the world. Other than that, I usually just go around taking pictures of pride flags around cities I visit, so I’m not the best person to ask.” 

“Oh,” Troy finally noticed the rainbow pin the girl was sporting on her jean jacket, right next to one with a piano on it and one of what- if he remembered correctly- looked like a lesbian pride flag. “Well,” he said, “guess I’ll do that, then.” 

“Eating chips and looking for pride flags,” she nodded knowingly, “the gay agenda.”

“I could get into that,” Troy considered with a smile, “especially the chips.” 

“That’s what I’m in it for, dude,” the girl replied, shooting him some finger guns. Her phone chimed and she groaned, looking at it. “I gotta go. Enjoy the chips, man!” She gave Troy one last smile and quickly walked away as Troy thanked her. 

He went to the street she had pointed out, bought some chips, and- oh, wow, those really were good. He sat by a canal to fully enjoy the experience and, of course, his thoughts drifted back to Abed. He wished he could taste the chips. He wished he could meet that nice blonde girl. He wished he could know if Abed could also get into the ‘gay agenda’, because well, Troy hadn’t been kidding when he had said that he could. 

He had been avoiding this. For years. Forever. 

But here’s one really cool thing he had realized on his trip: gay people, or- he mentally corrected himself- LGBT people in general, they weren’t actually weird, or wrong, or horrifying sinners like many, many people had tried (and he had to admit, kind of succeeded) to convince him they were. That girl he’d bumped into was proof. That nice person who had given him directions in Paris, wearing a shirt with what he’d later googled to find out was a nonbinary pride flag drawn on it, had been proof. And well… maybe he was proof. 

There was just one problem with the whole possibly-being-gay thing. 

He had… tried it. He’d gone to a couple of gay bars in Birmingham and flirted with some boys and even made out with a couple of them. And while it felt way a lot more right than anything with any girl ever had- it still didn’t feel _right_. It still felt like something was missing. All the time, Troy felt like something was missing. 

He just couldn’t figure out what. 

He looked down at the empty paper cone his chips had been in and felt a little sad, because they were delicious, and he really, really wished Abed could have tasted them. 

  


***

  


LeVar had insisted they spend another day in Amsterdam- apparently he had some friends there or something- so there Troy still was, wandering around a street he didn’t know the name of, once again noticing the insane amount of weed and sex shops, just trying to pass the time. 

He walked through a really big park, smiling a little wistfully at the couples holding hands, the parents playing with their kids, the groups of friends laughing with each other, until he got all the way to the other side than the one he’d gone in, and started smelling something _really_ appetizing and hearing a song- it was one Annie liked, _Wouldn’t It Be Nice_ by The Beach Boys, she listened to it all the time while cleaning. He walked past some trees to see what they had been covering, a number of food trucks, each one more inviting than the other, surrounded by a scarce but joyful crowd. 

Troy chose one of the least busy food trucks, got something with a dutch name he couldn’t pronounce- he had no idea what it was, but it looked delicious- and sat down on the grass. 

The song played on as the sun started to set, and Troy listened and watched, mesmerized. 

Once again, he wished Abed was there. 

He looked away from the sky, and his gaze fell on two girls sitting a few metres away from him. One of them was tilting the other girl’s chin up with her finger, and they met halfway for a kiss, as two forgotten waffles sat beside them. 

Something tugged at Troy’s heartstrings again, and he wished Abed was there. 

_Oh._

He wished Abed was there. 

He wished Abed was there, and he wished _he_ was tilting _Troy’s_ chin up with his finger and meeting him into a kiss, while a love song from the 60s played in the background and the sun set over them.

He wished Abed was there, because he was in love with Abed. 

Of course. That’s why nothing else felt right.

He had already found the right person, how could anything else compare?

  


***

  


Troy’s leg bounced up and down nervously as he waited for Abed to answer his Skype call. They talked almost everyday, be it via text, phone call, or, on the best of days, video-call, but up until the day before he’d had no idea he was in love with the man. Things were bound to be different. 

“Troy!” Abed said with a bright smile as soon as he picked up and his pixelated face filled the screen, “Where are you?” 

“Amsterdam,” Troy replied, unable -and unwilling- to hold back a smile of his own. He bit his lip, staring at his best friend.

He wanted to tell him. He wanted to tell him he got it now, he got why Abed was always on his mind, why he wanted to do everything with him, why he always felt something pulling him back to where Abed was. He wanted to tell him he loved him, was _in love_ with him, in the most ridiculous, over the top, rom-com way, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t do it when he had no real intention of going back anytime soon -despite how much he yearned to be close to Abed again- because this trip was doing _so much_ for him and he couldn’t give that up. He still had so much to understand, and it wasn’t just for his sake. If he was happy with himself, perhaps the people he loved would be happier too.

Instead, he quietly reduced it down to an “I miss you.” 

“I miss you too,” Abed replied a little sadly, “LA is weird. I think I made a friend, though. Kind of.” 

“That’s good,” Troy said sweetly. God, he wanted to touch him. He wanted to reach out and brush a hand over his cheek in that tender way people do in those movies Annie likes so much, wanted to stroke the hair he clearly hadn’t cut in a longer time than usual, wanted to- god, he wanted to kiss him. 

He tuned back in, and realized Abed was telling him a story about the show he worked on. 

“Wait, Abed, I didn’t hear that,” he interrupted him.

“Stupid connection,” Abed muttered, and Troy didn’t correct him; instead he sat there in silence, carefully listening as Abed told the story again.

Things weren’t different, he realized. The only thing that was different was that now he knew what all those feelings were; he knew that tug at his heartstrings everytime Abed smiled, that ache in his fingertips longing to reach out and touch, that fluttery feeling he had always felt in his chest around his best friend- that was love. And it was the most amazing thing Troy had ever felt.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I hope you liked it, if you did please leave a comment and/or kudos!


End file.
